Redistricting and Reapportionment

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      North Carolina Gerrymander Ruling Reflects Politicization of Judiciary Nationally

      by

      When it had a Democratic majority last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court voided the state’s legislative and congressional maps as illegal gerrymanders. Now the court has a Republican majority, and says the opposite.Last year, Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that maps of the state’s legislative and congressional districts drawn to give Republicans lopsided majorities were illegal gerrymanders. On Friday, the same court led by a newly elected Republican majority looked at the same facts, reversed itself and said it had no authority to act.The practical effect is to enable the Republican-controlled General Assembly to scrap the court-ordered State House, Senate and congressional district boundaries that were used in elections last November, and draw new maps skewed in Republicans’ favor for elections in 2024. The 5-to-2 ruling fell along party lines, reflecting the takeover of the court by Republican justices in partisan elections last November.The decision has major implications not just for the state legislature, where the G.O.P. is barely clinging to the supermajority status that makes its decisions veto-proof, but for the U.S. House, where a new North Carolina map could add at least three Republican seats in 2024 to what is now a razor-thin Republican majority. Overturning such a recent ruling by the court was a highly unusual move, particularly on a pivotal constitutional issue in which none of the facts had changed.The North Carolina case mirrors a national trend in which states that elect their judges — Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and others — have seen races for their high court seats turned into multimillion-dollar political battles, and their justices’ rulings viewed through a deeply partisan lens.Such political jockeying once was limited mostly to confirmation fights over seats on the U.S. Supreme Court. But as the nation’s partisan divide has deepened, and the federal courts have offloaded questions about issues like abortion and affirmative action to the states, choosing who will decide state legal battles has increasingly become an openly political fight.The new Republican majority of justices said the North Carolina Supreme Court had no authority to strike down partisan maps that the General Assembly had drawn.“Our constitution expressly assigns the redistricting authority to the General Assembly subject to explicit limitations in the text,” Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote for the majority. “Were this court to create such a limitation, there is no judicially discoverable or manageable standard for adjudicating such claims.”Justice Newby said that Democrats who led the previous court had claimed to have developed a standard for deciding when a political map was overly partisan, but that it was “riddled with policy choices” and overstepped the State Constitution’s grant of redistricting powers to the legislature.Legal scholars said the ruling also seemed likely to derail a potentially momentous case now before the U.S. Supreme Court involving the same maps. In that case, Moore v. Harper, leaders of the Republican-run legislature have argued that the U.S. Constitution gives state lawmakers the sole authority to set rules for state elections and political maps, and that state courts have no role in overseeing them.Now that the North Carolina Supreme Court has sided with the legislature and thrown out its predecessor’s ruling, there appears to be no dispute for the federal justices to decide, the scholars said.The ruling drew a furious dissent from one of the elected Democratic justices, Anita S. Earls, who said that it was pervaded by “lawlessness.” She accused the majority of making specious legal arguments, and at times using misleading statistics, to make a false case that partisan gerrymandering was beyond its jurisdiction.“The majority ignores the uncontested truths about the intentions behind partisan gerrymandering and erects an unconvincing facade that only parrots democratic values in an attempt to defend its decision, ” she wrote. “These efforts to downplay the practice do not erase its consequences and the public will not be gaslighted.”Some legal experts said the ruling underscored a trend in state courts that elect their justices, in which decisions in politically charged cases increasingly align with the ideological views of whichever party holds the majority on the court, sometimes regardless of legal precedent.“If you think the earlier State Supreme Court was wrong, we have mechanisms to change that, like a constitutional amendment,” Joshua A. Douglas, a scholar on state constitutions at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said in an interview. “But changing judges shouldn’t cause such a sea change in the rule of law, because if that’s the case, precedent has no value any longer, and judges really are politicians.”The state court also handed down two more rulings in politically charged cases, overturning decisions that favored voting-rights advocates and their Democratic supporters.In the first, the justices reconsidered and reversed a ruling by the previous court, again along party lines, that a voter ID law passed by the Republican majority in the legislature violated the equal protection clause in the State Constitution.In the second, the justices said a lower court “misapplied the law and overlooked facts crucial to its ruling” when it struck down a state law denying voting rights to people who had completed prison sentences on felony charges but were not yet released from parole, probation or other court restrictions.The lower court had said that the state law was rooted in an earlier law written to deny voting rights to African Americans, a conclusion that the Supreme Court justices said was mistaken.The new ruling undid a decision that had restored voting rights to more than 55,000 North Carolinians who had completed prison sentences. Those rights are now revoked, lawyers said, although the status of former felons who had already registered or voted under the previous ruling appeared unclear.The ruling on Friday in the gerrymander case, now known as Harper v. Hall, came after partisan elections for two Supreme Court seats in November shifted the seven-member court’s political balance to 5-to-2 Republican, from 4-to-3 Democratic.The Democratic-controlled court ruled along party lines in February 2022 that both the state legislative maps and the congressional district maps approved by the Republican legislature violated the State Constitution’s guarantees of free speech, free elections, free assembly and equal protection.A lower court later redrew the congressional map to be used in the November elections, but a dispute over the State Senate map, which G.O.P. leaders had redrawn, bubbled back to the State Supreme Court last winter. In one of its last acts, the Democratic majority on the court threw out the G.O.P.’s State Senate map, ordering that it be redrawn again. The court then reaffirmed its earlier order in a lengthy opinion.Ordinarily, that might have ended the matter. But after the new Republican majority was elected to the court, G.O.P. legislative leaders demanded that the justices rehear not just the argument over the redrawn Senate map, but the entire case.The ruling on Friday came after a brief re-argument of the gerrymander case in mid-March.North Carolina voters are almost evenly split between the two major parties; Donald J. Trump carried the state in 2020 with 49.9 percent of the vote. But the original map of congressional districts approved by the G.O.P. legislature in 2021, and later ruled to be a partisan gerrymander, would probably have given Republicans at least 10 of the state’s 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.Using a congressional map drawn last year by a court-appointed special master, the November election delivered seven congressional seats to each party. With the decision on Friday, the G.O.P. legislature is likely to approve a new map along the lines of its first one, giving state Republicans — and the slender Republican majority in the U.S. House — the opportunity to capture at least three more seats. More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      ‘One of the Odd and Scary Things About American Politics’ Is What Republicans Are Doing

      by

      Are democracies providing the rope to hang themselves?From Turkey to Hungary, from India to the United States, authoritarian leaders have gained power under the protective cloak of free elections.“There is no doubt that democratic processes and judicial decisions can be used to limit the power of the people, restructuring governments and institutions to make them less representative, more undemocratic,” Rogers Smith, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania told me, in response to my emailed inquiry.Smith continued:The classic examples are partisan gerrymandering and barriers to voting, but in recent years Republicans have gone further than ever before in using their overrepresentation in state legislatures to shift power to those legislatures, away from officeholders in Democratic-led cities, from officials elected statewide and from voters.Jack Goldstone, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, made a parallel argument by email:One of the odd and scary things about American politics, more reminiscent of the 19th century than anything in the post-World War II period, is that when the Republicans lost the presidential election in 2020 and did much worse than expected in 2022 (even worse than in a normal midterm contest), they did not abandon the leaders and policies that produced these results. Instead, they have doubled down on even more extreme and broadly unpopular leaders and policies, from Trump to abortion and guns.Goldstone believes that this developmentis a sign that normal politics have been replaced by extreme polarization and factional identity politics, in which the extremes grow stronger and drain the center. As a minority seeking to exercise control of government, it is actually necessary that the Trumpist G.O.P. suppress democratic procedures that normally produce majority control.If enough voters, Goldstone wrote,are deeply anxious or frightened of some real or imagined threat (e.g. socialism, mass immigration, crime, threats to their religion, transgender takeover), they may well vote for someone who promises to stand up to those threats, even if that person has no regard for preserving democracy, no regard for the rights and freedoms of those seen as “enemies.” If such a leader is elected, gets his or her party to control all parts of government, and wants to turn all the elements of government into a weapon to attack their enemies, no laws or other organizations can stop them.Goldstone warned “that should the Republicans manage to gain control of the House, Senate and presidency in 2024, building an electoral autocracy to impose their views without challenge will be their top priority.”There are two distinct mechanisms involved in overturning democracy, Goldstone argued:First, is controlling all elected and appointed elements of the government. If the same political party controls the House, Senate, judiciary and presidency, and disregards the principles of democracy and independence of officials, then sadly none of the institutions of democracy will prevent arbitrary and autocratic government.The second element, according to Goldstone, is unique to this country: “The United States has so many safeguards for minority rights that it is conceivable that a minority party could obtain complete control of all levers of government.”How so?The U.S. Senate is chosen on the basis of territory, not numbers, so that Wyoming and California both have two senators. Gerrymanders mean that states where Democratic and Republican voters are about even, like Wisconsin and North Carolina, have very unequal representation in Congress. Finally, the Electoral College method of aggregating state votes for president has meant that in 2000 and 2016 candidates with a minority of the people’s votes were elected.The consequences?“A determined effort to twist and benefit from these various opportunities and rules means that a party that represents a minority of the people can, in the U.S., control the House, Senate, and presidency,” Goldstone wrote, enabling “an oppressive government restricting freedom and ruling autocratically, and doing so to impose the goals and beliefs of a minority on an unwilling majority.”Robert Lieberman, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins and a co-author, with Suzanne Mettler, a political scientist at Cornell, of “Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy,” argued in an email that “Democratic procedure is not a threat to democracy per se, but it is fair to say that it has vulnerabilities.”“Democratic procedures,” he continued, “are intended to provide a means to hold leaders accountable,” which include:Horizontal accountability — institutional checks and balances that enable public officials to hold each other accountable; and vertical accountability — ways for citizens to hold public officials accountable, such as elections or popular mobilization. In a well-functioning democracy, both kinds of accountability work together to limit the concentration of power in the hands of a single party or individual.But Lieberman pointed out, “Democratic procedures can also enable would-be authoritarians to undermine both kinds of accountability under the cloak of democratic legitimacy.”Democratic regimes, he wrote, “are less likely than in the past to be overthrown in a sudden violent burst, as in an overt coup d’état. Instead, democracies are more frequently degraded by leaders who use apparently legal, democratic means to hollow out democratic accountability.”Voter suppression or gerrymandering, Lieberman noted,can limit vertical accountability by making it harder for the opposition to win elections, while maneuvers such as court packing can lower barriers for a party in power to expand its power. And these kind of tactics can reinforce one another, as when the Supreme Court upheld the practice of partisan gerrymandering (in Rucho v. Common Cause). Taken together, these kinds of moves can enable a party to gain and keep power without majority support and increasingly unconstrained by public disapproval.How do authoritarian-leaning politicians gain the power to elude the institutional restraints designed to maintain democracy? Stephan Haggard, a professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California-San Diego, emailed me to say that “an important feature of populism is the belief in majoritarian conceptions of democracy: that majorities should not be constrained by horizontal checks, various rights, or even by the rule of law: Majorities should be able to do what they want.”This majoritarian conception of democracy, Haggard continued,is a leitmotif of virtually all democratic backsliding episodes. That the will of “the people” is being thwarted by an elite (read “deep state”) that must be purged. Of course, the definition of “the people” does not refer to everyone, but the favored supporters of the autocrat: whites in the U.S., Muslims in Turkey, Russian traditionalists and so on.One common characteristic of democratic backsliding, according to Haggard, is its incrementalism, which, in turn, mutes the ability of the public to perceive what is happening in front of its eyes:A constant refrain from observers who have weathered these systems is how difficult it is to be clear as to what is transpiring. This comes in part because autocrats lie and distort the truth — that is fundamental — but also because behaviors once thought out of bounds are normalized. Think Trump’s open racism or calls for violence against opponents at his rallies; all of that got normalized.Christina Ewig, a professor of public affairs at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, views contemporary challenges to democracy from another vantage point.In an email responding to my inquiry, Ewig wrote that she disagrees with the premise that democracy is providing the rope to hang itself. Instead, she argued, “Democracy and democratic procedure are not threats to democracy itself. Instead, anti-democratic actors that abuse the state are a threat to democracy.”The United States, Ewig continued, “shows evidence of becoming what the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way call a ‘competitive authoritarian regime’ — a regime that is civilian, with formal democratic institutions, but in which incumbents ‘abuse’ the state to stay in power.”Prominent examplesinclude former President Trump’s attempts to influence Georgia officials to change election outcomes in November 2020, and then to impede the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6. Senator Mitch McConnell’s refusal to let President Obama nominate a Supreme Court justice is another. At the state level, Wisconsin Republicans, through district gerrymandering, have a chokehold on a purple state.All of these examples, Ewig argued,appear to be abuses of democracy rather than uses of democracy. Democracy requires an acceptance that one’s party will not always be a winner. But the Republican Party in the United States has, on more than one occasion, refused to lose.For now, Ewig wrote, the United States is not a competitive authoritarian regime. The results of the 2020 national elections and the institutional opposition to the insurrection in 2021 “helped to avoid that. But some U.S. states do look suspiciously competitive authoritarian.”Why is democracy under such stress now? There are many answers to that question, including, crucially, the divisiveness inherent in the elevated levels of contemporary polarization that makes democratic consensus so difficult to achieve.In an April 2021 paper, four scholars, Samuel Wang of Princeton, Jonathan Cervas of Carnegie Mellon, Bernard Grofman of the University of California-Irvine and Keena Lipsitz of Queens College, address the basic question of what led to the erosion among a substantial number of voters of support for democratic principles in a nation with a two-century-plus commitment to this tradition:In the United States, rules and institutions from 1790, when voters comprised white male landowners and slave owners in a nation of four million, were not designed to address today’s governance needs. Moreover, existing rules and institutions may amplify background conditions that drive polarization. The decline of civic life in America and the pluralism it once nurtured has hastened a collapse of dimensionality in the system.Americans once enjoyed a rich associational life, Wang and his colleagues write, the demise of which contributes to the erosion of democracy: “Nonpolitical associations, such as labor unions, churches, and bowling leagues, were often crosscutting, bringing people from different backgrounds into contact with one another, building trust and teaching tolerance.” In recent years, however, “the groups that once structured a multidimensional issue space in the United States have collapsed.”The erosion of democracy is also the central topic of a Feb. 13 podcast with Martin Wolf, a Financial Times columnist and the author of “The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism.” Wolf makes the case that “economic changes and the performance of the economy interacting produced quite a large number of people who feared that they were becoming losers. They feared that they risked falling into the condition of people who really were at the bottom.”At the same time, Wolf continued, “the immense growth of the financial sector and the dominance of the financial sector in management generated some simply staggering fortunes at the top.” Instead of helping to drive democratization, the market system “recreated an oligarchy. I think there’s no doubt about that.”Those who suffered, Wolf noted, “felt the parties of the center-left had largely abandoned them and were no longer really interested in their fate.”Two senior fellows at Brookings, William Galston and Elaine Kamarck, explore threats to American democracy in a January 2022 analysis, “Is Democracy Failing and Putting Our Economy at Risk?” Citing data from six surveys, including those by Pew, P.R.R.I., Voter Study Group and CNN, the authors write:Support in the United States for political violence is significant. In February 2021, 39 percent of Republicans, 31 percent of independents and 17 percent of Democrats agreed that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.” In November, 30 percent of Republicans, 17 percent of independents and 11 percent of Democrats agreed that they might have to resort to violence in order to save our country.In the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Galston and Kamarck observe:Even though constitutional processes prevailed, and Mr. Trump is no longer president, he and his followers continue to weaken American democracy by convincing many Americans to distrust the results of the election. About three-quarters of rank-and-file Republicans believe that there was massive fraud in 2020 and Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president.In fact, Galston and Kamarck continue, “the 2020 election revealed structural weaknesses in the institutions designed to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process,” noting that “if Mr. Pence had yielded to then-President Trump’s pressure to act, the election would have been thrown into chaos and the Constitution placed in jeopardy.”Since then, Galston and Kamarck note, the attack on democracyhas taken a new and dangerous turn. Rather than focusing on the federal government, Trump’s supporters have focused on the obscure world of election machinery. Republican majorities in state legislatures are passing laws making it harder to vote and weakening the ability of election officials to do their jobs.American democracy, the two authors conclude,is thus under assault from the ground up. The most recent systematic attack on state and local election machinery is much more dangerous than the chaotic statements of a disorganized former president. A movement that relied on Mr. Trump’s organizational skills would pose no threat to constitutional institutions. A movement inspired by him with a clear objective and a detailed plan to achieve it would be another matter altogether.“The chances that this threat will materialize over the next few years,” Galston and Kamarck add, “are high and rising.”If democracy fails in America, they contend,It will not be because a majority of Americans is demanding a nondemocratic form of government. It will be because an organized, purposeful minority seizes strategic positions within the system and subverts the substance of democracy while retaining its shell — while the majority isn’t well organized, or doesn’t care enough, to resist. The possibility that this will occur is far from remote.The anxiety about democratic erosion — even collapse — is widespread among those who think about politics for a living:In his January 2022 article, “Democracy’s Arc: From Resurgent to Imperiled,” Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute, joins those who tackle what has become an overriding topic of concern in American universities:For a decade, the democratic recession was sufficiently subtle, incremental and mixed so that it was reasonable to debate whether it was happening at all. But as the years have passed, the authoritarian trend has become harder to miss. For each of the last fifteen years, many more countries have declined in freedom than have gained. By my count, the percentage of states with populations over one million that are democracies peaked in 2006 at 57 percent and has steadily declined since, dropping below a majority (48 percent) in 2019 for the first time since 1993.In this country, Diamond continued, “Rising proportions of Americans in both camps express attitudes and perceptions that are blinking red for democratic peril. Common political ground has largely vanished.”He adds: “Even in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, most Americans have still not come to grips with how far the country has strayed from the minimum elements of normative and behavioral consensus that sustain democracy.”At the close of his essay, Diamond goes on to say:It is human nature to seek personal autonomy, dignity and self-determination, and with economic development those values have become ascendant. But there is nothing inevitable about the triumph of democracy.The next test will be in November 2024.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Wisconsin Supreme Court Election: Protasiewicz Wins With Abortion Message

      by

      Janet Protasiewicz prevailed in the state’s highly consequential contest for the Supreme Court, which will now be likely to reverse the state’s abortion ban and end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps.MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin voters on Tuesday chose to upend the political direction of their state by electing a liberal candidate to the State Supreme Court, flipping majority control from conservatives, according to The Associated Press. The result means that in the next year, the court is likely to reverse the state’s abortion ban and end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps drawn by Republicans.Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, defeated Daniel Kelly, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who sought a return to the bench. With more than 75 percent of votes counted, Judge Protasiewicz led by more than 10 percentage points, though the margin was expected to narrow as rural counties tallied ballots.“Our state is taking a step forward to a better and brighter future where our rights and freedoms will be protected,” Judge Protasiewicz told jubilant supporters at her victory party in Milwaukee.The contest, which featured over $40 million in spending, was the most expensive judicial election in American history. Early on, Democrats recognized the importance of the race for a swing seat on the top court in one of the country’s perennial political battlegrounds. Millions of dollars from out of state poured into Wisconsin to back Judge Protasiewicz, and a host of national Democratic groups rallied behind her campaign.Judge Protasiewicz, 60, shattered long-held notions of how judicial candidates should conduct themselves by making her political priorities central to her campaign. She made explicit her support for abortion rights and called the maps, which gave Republicans near-supermajority control of the Legislature, “rigged” and “unfair.”Her election to a 10-year term for an officially nonpartisan seat gives Wisconsin’s liberals a 4-to-3 majority on the court, which has been controlled by conservatives since 2008. Liberals will hold a court majority until at least 2025, when a liberal justice’s term expires. A conservative justice’s term ends in 2026.As the race was called Tuesday night, the court’s three sitting liberal justices embraced at Judge Protasiewicz’s election night party in Milwaukee, as onlookers cried tears of joy. During her speech, the judge and the other three liberal justices clasped their hands together in the air in celebration.“Today’s results mean two very important and special things,” Judge Protasiewicz said. “First, it means that Wisconsin voters have made their voices heard. They have chosen to reject partisan extremism in this state. And second, it means our democracy will always prevail.”Justice Kelly, 59, evinced the bitterness of the campaign with a testy concession speech that acknowledged his defeat and portended doom for the state. He called his rival’s campaign “truly beneath contempt” and decried “the rancid slanders that were launched against me.”“I wish that I’d be able to concede to a worthy opponent, but I do not have a worthy opponent,” Justice Kelly told supporters in Green Lake, Wis. He had not called Judge Protasiewicz by the time she delivered her victory remarks.He concluded the final speech of his campaign by saying, “I wish Wisconsin the best of luck, because I think it’s going to need it.”Judge Protasiewicz made a calculation from the start of the race that Wisconsin voters would reward her for making clear her positions on abortion rights and the state’s maps — issues most likely to animate and energize the base of the Democratic Party.In an interview at her home on Tuesday before the results were known, Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz) attributed her success on the campaign trail to the decision to inform voters of what she called “my values,” as opposed to Justice Kelly, who used fewer specifics about his positions.“Rather than reading between the lines and having to do your sleuthing around like I think people have to do with him, I think I would rather just let people know what my values are,” she said. “We’ll see tonight if the electorate appreciates that candor or not.”Over the last dozen years, the court has served as an important backstop for Wisconsin Republicans. It certified as constitutional Gov. Scott Walker’s early overhauls to state government, including the Act 10 law that gutted public employee unions, as well as voting restrictions like a requirement for a state-issued identification and a ban on ballot drop boxes.In 2020, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was the only one in the country to agree to hear President Donald J. Trump’s challenge to the presidential election. Mr. Trump sought to invalidate 200,000 ballots from the state’s two largest Democratic counties. The Wisconsin court rejected his claim on a 4-to-3 vote, with one of the conservative justices siding with the court’s three liberals on procedural grounds.That key vote gave this year’s court race extra importance, because the justices will weigh in on voting and election issues surrounding the 2024 election. Wisconsin, where Mr. Trump’s triumph in 2016 interrupted a string of Democratic presidential victories going back to 1988, is set to again be ferociously contested.The court has acted in Republicans’ interest on issues that have received little attention outside the state.In 2020, a year after Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, succeeded Mr. Walker, conservative justices agreed to limit his line-item veto authority, which generations of Wisconsin governors from both parties had used. Last year, the court’s conservatives allowed a Walker appointee whose term had expired to remain in office over Mr. Evers’s objection.Once Judge Protasiewicz assumes her place on the court on Aug. 1, the first priority for Wisconsin Democrats will be to bring a case to challenge the current legislative maps, which have given Republicans all but unbreakable control of the state government in Madison.Jeffrey A. Mandell, the president of Law Forward, a progressive law firm that has represented Mr. Evers, said he would file a legal request for the Supreme Court to hear a redistricting case the day after Judge Protasiewicz is seated.“Pretty much everything problematic in Wisconsin flows from the gerrymandering,” Mr. Mandell said in an interview on Tuesday. “Trying to address the gerrymander and reverse the extreme partisan gerrymandering we have is the highest priority.”The state’s abortion ban, which was enacted in 1849, seven decades before women could vote, is already being challenged by Josh Kaul, Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general. This week, a circuit court in Dane County scheduled the first oral arguments on Mr. Kaul’s case for May 4, but whichever way a county judge rules, the case is all but certain to advance on appeal to the State Supreme Court later this year.Dan Simmons More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      In Wisconsin, Liberals Barrage Conservative Supreme Court Candidate With Attack Ads

      by

      Daniel Kelly, the conservative candidate for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, promised that help was on the way. But his campaign has already been outspent on TV by $9.1 million to nothing.As conservatives in Wisconsin seek to maintain control of the State Supreme Court in an all-important election for a crucial swing seat, they would appear to be fighting uphill.The conservative candidate, Daniel Kelly, is trailing in limited private polling of the race. Abortion rights, which powered Democrats in the midterm elections, are driving the party to shovel enormous sums of money into the campaign. And perhaps most significantly, Justice Kelly’s campaign has been outspent by a staggering margin on television since the Feb. 21 primary: $9.1 million to nothing.But Justice Kelly, who sat on the court before losing re-election in 2020, appears unfazed. He told supporters on Sunday in northwest Wisconsin that help was on the way from unidentified outside groups in his race against Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge opposing him in the April 4 election.“Because there are nationwide organizations that care about the rule of law, about the constitutional order, and they are spending to promote our campaign, you should start seeing the effects of them this coming week,” Justice Kelly told a gathering of the Northland Freedom Alliance in Webster, Wis. “Right now, it’s kind of wall-to-wall Janet. And I object to that. There, I’m told the cavalry is on the way. And so hopefully, they’ll have some good and smart and true ads.”Wisconsin is at the midway point of a six-week general election for a seat that will determine the balance of the State Supreme Court. Victory by Justice Kelly would preserve conservatives’ sway over the court, which they have controlled since 2008, while success by Judge Protasiewicz would give Wisconsin liberals an opportunity to legalize abortion rights and invalidate the state’s Republican-drawn gerrymandered legislative maps, as well as roll back other measures put in place by the court and G.O.P. lawmakers.The New York Times obtained a recording of Justice Kelly’s remarks, in which he addressed an array of issues likely to be decided in the high-stakes race and estimated that his campaign would raise $2 million to $2.5 million. He also again sought to draw a contrast with Judge Protasiewicz, who has been remarkably open about her political views, by asserting that his comments articulating his judicial philosophy do not constitute broadcasting his personal political positions.“I don’t talk about my politics for the same reason I don’t campaign on who the Packers’ next quarterback should be,” he said. “It has no effect on the job.”While Justice Kelly promised that the cavalry was on the way, it’s unclear whether it will be enough to turn the tide of the battle.Only one national organization has spent anything on television to support the Kelly campaign: the super PAC Fair Courts America, which is backed by Richard Uihlein, the conservative billionaire. So far in the general election, Fair Courts America has spent $2.3 million on TV ads. This week, it began a further $450,000 in statewide radio advertising, but the group has not yet committed to investing more in the race, according to a person familiar with Mr. Uihlein’s decisions who was not authorized to speak publicly.The biggest pro-Kelly spender, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s business lobby, has spent $3.4 million on his behalf so far. Nick Novak, a spokesman for the group, declined to comment on the group’s future plans. A Fair Courts America spokesman did not respond to messages on Tuesday. The flood of Protasiewicz ads have attacked Justice Kelly for his opposition to abortion rights, past statements attacking Social Security and his association with Republican attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, among other issues.Mr. Kelly’s spokesman, Ben Voelkel, said Mr. Kelly was filming a television ad on Tuesday. He predicted the Kelly campaign and its allies would soon catch up with Judge Protasiewicz and Democrats in overall television spending, but at the same time suggested the millions of dollars spent of television time was wasted in a relatively low-turnout April election.“We’re reaching out to voters in a lot of different ways,” Mr. Voelkel said. “They are spending millions of dollars for an election that’s not going to have a big turnout. We’ve taken a slightly different approach.”Wisconsin’s municipal clerks began placing absentee ballots for the Supreme Court election in the mail this week, and in-person ballots can be cast starting next Tuesday. Private polling conducted by officials on both sides of the race shows Judge Protasiewicz with a lead over Justice Kelly in the mid-to-high single digits. Mr. Voelkel disputed that Justice Kelly was trailing but declined to reveal the campaign’s figures.The court election is formally a nonpartisan contest, but there is little mystery about where the candidates stand politically. The bulk of Judge Protasiewicz’s campaign money has come from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which can transfer unlimited amounts under state law. Justice Kelly has worked as a lawyer for the Republican National Committee, which hired him to focus on “election integrity” issues for the party during and after the 2020 election.On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton endorsed Judge Protasiewicz. Justice Kelly was endorsed by President Donald J. Trump during the justice’s 2020 re-election campaign, which he lost.In the last three weeks, the Protasiewicz campaign has spent $9.1 million on television advertising, and outside groups supporting her have spent $2.03 million, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.The imbalance on Wisconsin’s television airwaves is even greater than the spending figures suggest.Because the Protasiewicz campaign is able to buy television advertising at about one-third the rate of independent expenditure groups, she alone has broadcast more than three times as many TV advertisements in Wisconsin as the pro-Kelly groups combined, according to AdImpact’s data.“Dan Kelly has been relying on extreme right-wing groups to save his campaign with millions of dollars in ads that lie about Judge Janet Protasiewicz’s record,” said Sam Roecker, a spokesman for the Protasiewicz campaign.The election is already the most expensive judicial race in American history, with at least $27 million spent so far on television alone. A 2004 contest for the Illinois Supreme Court previously had the most spending, at $15 million, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.In an interview on the eve of the primary last month, Justice Kelly said he had not received any private spending commitments from Mr. Uihlein and had not spoken with him since last summer. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      No Rest Between Censuses for Congressional Mapmakers

      by

      What used to be a once-a-decade redistricting fight between political parties is now in perpetual motion, and up to 29 seats in 14 states are already at risk of being redrawn.WASHINGTON — For just about all of the nation’s history, politicians would fight over redistricting for a short period after each once-a-decade census, then forget about congressional maps until the next reapportionment.Now, a string of lawsuits and in-the-works state referendums are poised to redefine the battles over state legislative and congressional lines and leave the country in a state of perpetual redistricting.The dynamic is an escalation of the scattered redistricting battles over the last decade. Not since 2012 and 2014 have all 50 states’ congressional lines remained constant for consecutive elections, a streak unlikely to be broken next year. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee estimates that up to 29 seats in 14 states could be redrawn based on lawsuits that have already been filed. Scores more seats could change if the Supreme Court rules later this year that state legislators have ultimate authority to draw the lines.To prepare for those fights, the party’s redistricting committee is changing its leadership for the first time since its formation in 2017. Kelly Burton, the committee’s president, is leaving to join its six-member board and is being replaced by John Bisognano, who has been executive director. Marina Jenkins, who has served as the committee’s litigation director, will succeed Mr. Bisognano as executive director.“People used to think about staff that worked on redistricting as redistricting cicadas that come out every 10 years,” Mr. Bisognano said in an interview Thursday. “We need to keep this movement alive and growing in order to continue to fight back against the gerrymandering that we see coming.”Mr. Bisognano, a 38-year-old Massachusetts native, worked as a clubhouse manager for the minor league baseball team that used to play in Pawtucket, R.I., before beginning his political career as an organizer on Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. He later worked in the Obama White House and joined the Democratic redistricting committee shortly after it formed in 2017.Mr. Bisognano, the new president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and Marina Jenkins, its new executive director.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesThe Democratic redistricting committee and its Republican counterpart, the National Republican Redistricting Trust, both emerged in 2017, as the two parties prepared for the redistricting cycle that would follow the 2020 census. That cycle was itself a shift from how redistricting business had been done before, when it was chiefly a concern of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. Both redistricting organizations are remaining intact for the 2020s, as the political and legal fights persist, and lines that in past decades would have been considered fixed are now subject to change.“It was something that the party committees used to do themselves — the D.N.C. and the R.N.C. both had it in-house for a long time,” said Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the Republican redistricting organization. “It was time for organizations to have a full-time eye on this versus just having one or two staff working on it part time.”Republicans, led by a super PAC run by Ed Gillespie, outflanked Democrats in 2010 to flip control of 20 state legislative chambers just before new congressional and state legislative districts were to be drawn. That gave Republicans a firm grip on the House that didn’t give way until 2018, when President Donald J. Trump alienated suburban voters who had previously voted for G.O.P. candidates.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Yielding to Conspiracy Theories: Five Republican-led states have severed ties with a bipartisan voting integrity group, one that has faced intensifying attacks from election deniers and right-wing media.Asian Americans: In the New York governor’s election last year, voters in Asian neighborhoods across New York City sharply increased their support for Republicans. The shift is part of a national trend.The MAGA-fication of a College: North Idaho College trustees vowed to root out the school administration’s “deep state.” A full-blown crisis followed, and the school’s accreditation is now at risk.Chicago Mayor’s Race: The mayoral runoff pits two Democrats against each other who are on opposite sides of the debate over crime and policing — a divide national Republicans hope to exploit.By then, Mr. Obama, along with his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., had created the Democratic redistricting organization in the waning days of his presidency. Mr. Holder will most likely head to Wisconsin this month to campaign for Janet Protasiewicz, the liberal state supreme court candidate there, while Mr. Obama is hosting a March fund-raiser for the committee that will have as a “special guest” Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic House speaker.“For the past six years, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee has done the hard work of redrawing and reinstating district maps to make them more fair,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “Their work has meant the difference between victory and defeat, and our democracy is in stronger shape because of what they have accomplished.”Barack Obama helped create the Democratic redistricting organization in the waning days of his presidency.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesThe next movement on redistricting is likely to come in Ohio and North Carolina, where Republicans who control the state governments are poised to redraw congressional maps to give their party an added advantage. Texas lawmakers are also redrawing their maps.Democrats have challenged maps in four states — Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Texas — for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits racial discrimination. Democrats have also filed a lawsuit in state courts in their effort to undo congressional maps in Florida and Utah.In New Mexico, Republicans are suing to overturn congressional district maps.And the outcome of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April will determine whether a Republican-drawn gerrymander of state legislative lines survives. Four other states — Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania — have state Supreme Court elections in the next five years that could shift the balance of power and change how district lines are drawn.In those five years, control of the Michigan court, on which liberals now hold a 4-3 majority, could change three times.“We started this project six years ago because American voters deserved fair maps that represent our diverse communities — and we needed a coordinated strategy to make that happen,” Mr. Holder said. “The threat to fair maps continues and so must N.D.R.C.’s work.”In addition to elections for governors, state Supreme Court justices and legislators, ballot referendums are another area that the national parties’ state legislative committees are targeting.Florida, Missouri and Oklahoma all have legislation pending that would make passing a voter-driven referendum harder. Republicans in South Dakota and several other states tried similar threshold increases last year, but voters rejected them.Mr. Bisognano said the Democratic redistricting committee would also keep a focus on maintaining the integrity of the 2030 census after Trump administration officials tried to meddle in the 2020 census in order to achieve a favorable outcome for Republicans.“It came and went very quickly, and Covid obviously had an interesting and significant impact on the census, but so did Donald Trump,” Mr. Bisognano said.The Supreme Court could also sharply increase the power that state legislators have over drawing congressional districts. However, justices hinted this week that they might duck making a ruling on the case, known as Moore v. Harper.Even without a major Supreme Court decision, just seven states have laws that forbid mid-decade congressional districting, leaving the others to draw new maps when state legislators desire. Six more states prohibit new state legislative lines to be drawn in between censuses.A Supreme Court ruling that state legislators have ultimate control over federal redistricting would remove any stability from the redistricting process, Mr. Bisognano said.“If you add on the reality that these folks could redraw their maps and have no checks and balances in any capacity, that’s a pretty grim prospect for the ability for citizens to have fair maps,” he said. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      In Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Democratic Turnout Was High

      by

      Democratic turnout was high in the Tuesday primary for the State Supreme Court, ahead of a costly general election that will decide the future of abortion rights and gerrymandered maps in the state.MILWAUKEE — Eight months after the nation’s highest court made abortion illegal in Wisconsin, a liberal State Supreme Court candidate who made reproductive rights the centerpiece of her campaign won more votes than her two conservative opponents combined.The Wisconsin Supreme Court primary election on Tuesday was a triumph for the state’s liberals. In addition to capturing 54 percent of the vote in the four-way, officially nonpartisan primary, they will face a conservative opponent in the general election who was last seen losing a 2020 court election by double digits. It proved to be a best-case scenario for Wisconsin Democrats, who for years have framed the April 4 general election for the State Supreme Court as their last chance to stop Republicans from solidifying their grip on the state. Republicans took control of the state government in 2011 and drew themselves legislative maps to ensure perpetual power over the state’s Legislature, despite the 50-50 nature of Wisconsin politics.“If Republicans keep their hammerlock on the State Supreme Court majority, Wisconsin remains stuck in an undemocratic doom loop,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.Now, with an opportunity to retake a majority on the State Supreme Court that could undo Wisconsin’s 1849 ban on nearly all abortions and throw out the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps, Democrats have the general election matchup they wanted. Janet Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz), a liberal circuit court judge in Milwaukee County, will face off against Daniel Kelly, a conservative former State Supreme Court justice who lost a 2020 election for his seat by nearly 11 percentage points — a colossal spread in such an evenly divided state. Abortion rights demonstrators gathered in Madison, Wis., in January 2022. Judge Protasiewicz has sought to put abortion, which is now illegal in most cases in Wisconsin, at the center of the campaign. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTuesday’s results suggested that the state’s Democratic voters are more energized than Republicans. While the number of ballots cast statewide represented 29 percent of the 2020 presidential electorate, the turnout in Dane County was 40 percent of the 2020 total, a striking figure for a judicial election. In Dane County, which includes the liberal state capital of Madison, Joseph R. Biden Jr. took three out of every four votes.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Black Mayors: The Black mayors of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston have banded together as they confront violent crime, homelessness and other similar challenges.Wisconsin Supreme Court: Democratic turnout was high in the primary for the swing seat on the court, ahead of a general election that will decide the future of abortion rights and gerrymandered maps in the state.Mississippi Court Plan: Republican lawmakers want to create a separate court system served by a state-run police force for mainly Black parts of the capital, Jackson, reviving old racial divisions.Michigan G.O.P.: Michigan Republicans picked Kristina Karamo to lead the party in the battleground state, fully embracing an election-denying Trump acolyte after her failed bid for secretary of state.Republicans will also face the financial might of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which on Wednesday transferred $2.5 million to the Protasiewicz campaign. Justice Kelly did not spend a dollar on television advertising during the primary, but he was aided by $2.8 million in spending from a super PAC funded by the conservative billionaire Richard Uihlein, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. Democrats also helped Justice Kelly by spending $2.2 million to attack his conservative opponent, Jennifer Dorow, a circuit court judge in Waukesha County. Justice Kelly has said he expects Mr. Uihlein’s PAC, Fair Courts America, to spend another $20 million on his behalf for the general election. That money will not go as far as the cash transferred directly to the Protasiewicz campaign because candidates can buy television advertising at far lower rates than PACs. Wisconsin’s conservatives, who have controlled the court since 2008, fear a rollback not just of their favorable maps but also of a host of Republican-friendly policies that were ushered in while Scott Walker was governor, including changes to the state’s labor and voting laws. “She’s going to impart her values upon Wisconsin regardless of what the law is — does that seem like democracy to you?” said Eric Toney, the district attorney for Fond du Lac County, who was the Republican nominee for attorney general last year. “This isn’t Republicans and Democrats. It’s democracy and the rule of law that is on the line.”There is also the question of how Wisconsin Republicans coalesce after their second bruising primary contest in six months. Throughout the campaign, Justice Kelly declined to say that he would back Judge Dorow in the general election, while her supporters flatly said that he would lose the general election.It was a bit of a replay of the governor’s race last year, when bitter intraparty feelings remained after Tim Michels, with former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement, defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch in the primary. Ms. Kleefisch then did little to encourage her supporters to back Mr. Michels, who later lost the general election to Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.“With Michels and Kleefisch, there wasn’t that come-together-to-Jesus moment,” said Stephen L. Nass, a Republican state senator from Whitewater. “I think people realize now that was a mistake. It should have happened. And now we’ve got to do it.”Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was one vote away from overturning Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, deciding in a series of 4-to-3 decisions to reject Mr. Trump’s efforts to invalidate 200,000 votes from the state’s two largest Democratic counties.Judge Protasiewicz speaking at her primary night party on Tuesday in Milwaukee. She has openly declared her views in support of abortion rights and against Wisconsin’s gerrymandered legislative maps.Caleb Alvarado for The New York Times“What our Supreme Court did with the 2020 presidential election kind of turned people’s stomachs,” Judge Protasiewicz said in an interview on Tuesday over coffee and paczki, a Polish pastry served on Fat Tuesday. “We were one vote away from overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.”Judge Protasiewicz has pioneered what may be a new style of judicial campaigning. She has openly proclaimed her views on abortion rights (she’s for them) and the state’s legislative maps (she’s against them). That has appeared to offend Justice Kelly, who devoted chunks of his Tuesday victory speech to condemning the idea that Judge Protasiewicz had predetermined opinions about subjects likely to come before the court.“If we do not resist this assault on our Constitution and our liberties, we will lose the rule of law and find ourselves saddled with the rule of Janet,” Justice Kelly told supporters in Waukesha County. But Judge Protasiewicz has considerable incentives to put her views on hot-button topics front and center for voters. (She calls them “my values” to remain within a law that prohibits judicial candidates from plainly stating how they would rule on specific cases.) Democrats learned in last year’s midterm contests just how potent and motivating abortion is for their voters. Judge Protasiewicz, in the interview, recounted how voters had come to her campaign stops wearing sweatshirts bearing the words “Fair maps now.” “The voters are demanding more,” said Rebecca Dallet, a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, at the Protasiewicz victory party on Tuesday in Milwaukee. “People want to know more about their candidates. And I think there’s a way to communicate that without saying anything that shouldn’t be said about future cases.”Justice Kelly’s views are hardly opaque, either.Appointed to the court by Mr. Walker in 2016 before losing his re-election bid in 2020, Justice Kelly went on to work for the Republican National Committee as an “election integrity” consultant. He has the endorsement of the state’s three major anti-abortion groups.Justice Kelly speaking at a party on Tuesday night in Okauchee Lake, Wis. He said in an interview that only state legislators, not the State Supreme Court, could overturn Wisconsin’s abortion ban.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesDuring an interview on Monday night in Sheboygan, Justice Kelly said only legislators could overturn the state’s 1849 abortion ban, enacted decades before women were allowed to vote. He said that complaints about the maps amounted to a “political problem” and that they were legally sound.Yet in the same interview, conducted in the back of a bar during a meeting of the Sheboygan County Republican Party, Justice Kelly declined to say whether he supported the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling in December 2020 that rejected Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the state’s presidential election results.“If I were to say it was decided correctly, then the hullabaloo would be, ‘Justice Kelly doesn’t care about election integrity,’” he said. “If I say it was decided incorrectly, the hullabaloo would be, ‘Justice Kelly favors overthrowing in presidential elections.’ And so I don’t think there’s any way to answer that question in a way that would not get overcome by extraneous noise.”Still, he said he had “no reason to believe” Wisconsin’s 2020 election was not decided properly.Since Justice Kelly lost in 2020, he and other Republicans have taken it as an article of faith that the wide margin of his defeat could be attributed to the Democratic presidential primary, which fell on the same day. Several Republicans asserted that Wisconsin’s Democratic Party leadership had colluded with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, whose presidential campaign was by then a lost cause, to remain in the race to lift the chances of the liberal candidate, Jill Karofsky.“It still pains me to admit that, as it turns out, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders combined can turn out more votes than little old me,” Justice Kelly said Monday.Faiz Shakir, who was the campaign manager for the Sanders campaign, said in an interview that Mr. Sanders had indeed decided to suspend his campaign and concede to Mr. Biden days before Wisconsin’s April 2020 primary, but encouraged his supporters to vote in the primary anyway to influence the court election.One thing that is clear is that the next six weeks in Wisconsin politics will be dominated by the Protasiewicz campaign’s effort to place abortion rights at the center of the race. The issue will feature heavily in her television advertising, while Republicans will try to change the subject to crime — or anything else. “Everybody is very emotional about abortion, so that’s the tail that’s going to wag the dog,” said Aaron R. Guenther, a conservative Christian minister from Sheboygan. “It’s not what all of life is about, but it’s what the election is going to be about.”Dan Simmons contributed reporting from Okauchee Lake, Wis. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Liberal Judge Is First to Advance in Major Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

      by

      Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal judge from Milwaukee County, will face one of two conservatives in a race that could tilt the balance of the court, with abortion rights, gerrymandered maps and more in the balance.MILWAUKEE — Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, won her race on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, and advanced to the general election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the most consequential American election on the 2023 calendar.On April 4, Judge Protasiewicz will face one of two conservatives for a 10-year term on the court: Daniel Kelly, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, or Jennifer Dorow, a Waukesha County judge known for presiding over the trial last fall of a man who killed six people by driving through a 2021 Christmas parade. Late Tuesday, The A.P. had not yet projected which candidate would advance along with Judge Protasiewicz.The winner of the officially nonpartisan race will tip the balance of the state’s seven-member Supreme Court, which has been controlled by conservatives since 2008. If Judge Protasiewicz prevails, the court will have a four-member liberal majority that would be likely to overturn the state’s 1849 law forbidding abortion in nearly all cases, redraw Wisconsin’s heavily gerrymandered legislative and congressional maps, and influence how the state’s 10 electoral votes are awarded after the 2024 presidential election.“Everything we care about is going to be determined by who wins this election,” Judge Protasiewicz told supporters in a victory speech on Tuesday night. Influential Democrats in Wisconsin coalesced long ago behind Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz), who has endorsements from a range of top party officials and de facto support from many others. The other liberal candidate in the race, Everett Mitchell, a judge in Dane County, which includes Madison, lagged far behind the other three major candidates in fund-raising.More on Abortion Issues in AmericaAbortion Bills: More than 300 abortion-related bills — a majority of which seek restrictions — have been proposed around the United States. Doctors are the most vulnerable to punishment.A Missed Opportunity: Abortion rights activists say President Biden’s State of the Union speech could have done more to address what they view as a national health crisis.State Constitutions: Divergent decisions by state supreme courts in South Carolina and Idaho displayed how volatile the fight over abortion rights will be, as advocates and opponents push and pull over state constitutions.A New Lawsuit: A company that makes an abortion pill filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of West Virginia’s ban on the medication. A wave of similar cases are expected to be filed in coming months.Republicans split between Justice Kelly, who lost a 2020 election for a full term after being appointed in 2016 by Gov. Scott Walker, and Judge Dorow, whom Mr. Walker appointed to the Waukesha court.The fight for conservative votes grew increasingly bitter in the closing days before Tuesday’s primary election. Justice Kelly said in interviews on conservative talk radio and at campaign stops that he would not commit to endorsing Judge Dorow if she advanced to the general election, while Judge Dorow’s supporters argued that Justice Kelly was unelectable based on his performance in 2020, when he lost by 10 percentage points.The race is all but certain to become the most expensive judicial election in American history, topping the $15 million spent on a 2004 race for the Illinois Supreme Court. Already, more than $8.7 million has been spent on television and digital advertising in the Supreme Court race, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.Officials in both parties expect tens of millions more to be spent by each side during the six-week general election.Justice Kelly has used his deep-pocketed supporters as a reason to vote for him in the primary. He told conservatives gathered at a Republican Party dinner this month in Sawyer County that they should back him because he had the support of the billionaire Uihlein family, which has pledged to spend millions of dollars on his behalf. Justice Kelly said the Uihleins would not back Judge Dorow in the general election.“If it’s not me in the general election, I don’t think that money just moves over to Jennifer,” Justice Kelly said. “It just won’t be spent. So if I’m not the candidate in the general election, Jennifer will jump in completely unarmed when the left is going to spend up to $25 million.”The state’s Democrats and Judge Protasiewicz’s campaign believe Judge Dorow would be a stronger general election opponent. A Better Wisconsin Together, a Democratic super PAC, spent more than $2 million on television ads before the primary attacking Judge Dorow. The Uihleins’ super PAC, Fair Courts America, spent $2.7 million backing Mr. Kelly and attacking Judge Protasiewicz. More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      What to Watch For in a Consequential Court Election in Wisconsin

      by

      Voters are going to the polls today in the primary election for a swing seat on the state’s Supreme Court, with abortion rights, gerrymandered maps and more at stake.BELOIT, Wis. — It is a funny thing about American politics that for one night, the nation’s most important campaign of 2023 descended on Cheezhead Brewing, a tavern where about 50 Republicans gathered to discuss the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.Standing in front of a Green Bay Packers logo made from green, gold and white bottle caps, Jennifer Dorow, a Waukesha County judge who is one of two conservatives running in Tuesday’s four-way primary, told the crowd on Sunday night that “fairness and impartiality are squarely on the ballot this election.”What fairness and impartiality mean, however, depends entirely on one’s political stripes.Democrats say Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, controlled by conservatives since 2008, has enacted unfair legislative maps that have allowed Republicans to take near-supermajority control of the State Assembly and Senate in an evenly divided state — making nearly everything the State Legislature does unfair. The leading liberal candidate in the race, Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, calls the maps “rigged” and has said she would vote to throw them out.For conservatives like Judge Dorow, publicly telegraphing one’s intentions on the court and prejudging cases are violations of the judicial oath.But few in Wisconsin are fooled about the stakes of this officially nonpartisan race for an open seat on the seven-member court. If a liberal candidate wins a 10-year term, the court will tip in liberals’ favor, and the state would be likely to throw out its 1849 law banning abortion in nearly all cases and to redraw its legislative maps. If a conservative wins, abortion will remain illegal and Republicans will retain a lock on the Legislature for at least another decade.A protest for abortion rights last month in the rotunda at Wisconsin’s Capitol. The Supreme Court race could decide the fate of Wisconsin’s abortion ban.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe top two candidates from Tuesday’s primary will advance to the general election on April 4. As voters cast their ballots, here is what’s happening in the race.The G.O.P. establishment is fighting outsiders.Last fall, Wisconsin’s Republican establishment rallied behind Daniel Kelly, a former Supreme Court justice who, in 2020, lost a bid for re-election — just the second sitting justice to do so since 1958.But whispers soon emerged on the right about Justice Kelly’s ability to win. He lost that 2020 race by 10 percentage points, an enormous margin in battleground Wisconsin, where a three-point victory in a statewide race constitutes a blowout.Around the same time, Judge Dorow was presiding over the most prominent local court case in years — the murder trial of a man eventually convicted of killing six people by driving through a 2021 Christmas parade. She was on the news every night for weeks.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Michigan G.O.P.: Michigan Republicans picked Kristina Karamo to lead the party in the battleground state, fully embracing an election-denying Trump acolyte after her failed bid for secretary of state.Dianne Feinstein: The Democratic senator of California will not run for re-election in 2024, clearing the way for what is expected to be a costly and competitive race to succeed the iconic political figure.Lori Lightfoot: As the mayor of Chicago seeks a second term at City Hall, her administration is overseeing the largest experiment in guaranteed basic income in the nation.Union Support: In places like West Virginia, money from three major laws passed by Congress is pouring into the alternative energy industry and other projects. Democrats hope it will lead to increased union strength.There hasn’t been a Wisconsin Supreme Court race with multiple conservative candidates since the turn of the millennium, and Justice Kelly’s allies were determined to avoid one.“I personally called Jennifer before she entered the race and pleaded with her not to jump in,” Shelley Grogan, an appellate court judge who serves as a Kelly surrogate, told the Cheezhead Brewing audience. “It’s really hard for a conservative to win. So if there’s more than one person interested, they sit down and talk about it and decide who we can all get behind.”(In a subsequent interview, Judge Grogan said she was interested in running for the State Supreme Court in the future. A liberal justice’s term is up in 2025, and a conservative justice’s will expire in 2026.)Jennifer Dorow, a Waukesha County judge, is one of two conservatives running in Tuesday’s four-way primary.Caleb Alvarado for The New York TimesJudge Dorow told the audience she would not wait her turn.“I don’t believe in deciding candidates in a back room,” she said. “I believe it’s important that the voters in the state of Wisconsin do that.”The 2020 election still looms large — for both parties.When the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled, in a series of 4-to-3 votes, to uphold Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 victory in Wisconsin, it was a conservative justice, Brian Hagedorn, who provided the key vote to reject President Donald J. Trump’s argument to invalidate 200,000 votes.Those decisions have energized Democrats, who are poised to pour tens of millions of dollars behind Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz). But they have also animated Justice Kelly, who has repeatedly accused Judge Dorow of being the second coming of Justice Hagedorn — a sort of untrustworthy Trojan horse who would betray Republicans when it counts.Justice Kelly, who The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week revealed has for two years been paid by the Republican National Committee to work on “election integrity issues,” has repeatedly tied Judge Dorow to Justice Hagedorn. Along with voting against Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, Justice Hagedorn sided with several pandemic mitigation efforts by Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, in 2020. Justice Hagedorn has been a reliable conservative vote on most matters, including redistricting, but many on the right have not forgiven him for defying Mr. Trump.“I’m kind of in the same place that I was with Brian Hagedorn, all I have is what she says about herself,” Justice Kelly said at a meeting of Republicans on Monday night in Sheboygan. “Jennifer may very well be a judicial conservative, she might be, I just don’t know because there’s nothing there to tell me that she is.”Justice Hagedorn, in an email, said he was “not interested in commenting at this time.”Republicans are arguing about what it means to be electable.Justice Kelly’s 2020 defeat is the animating feature of Judge Dorow’s campaign.“I’m the only conservative who can win in April,” she wrote on Twitter, linking to a radio advertisement in which one of Milwaukee’s leading conservative talk radio hosts delivered a monologue supporting her candidacy.But besides offering the basic bromides about being a conservative judge who will abide by the Constitution, Judge Dorow has said little else about her candidacy. She has declined nearly all interview requests, and in Beloit a campaign aide said she would respond only to preapproved questions. She did not linger at the bar to speak with voters after her remarks.Judge Janet Protasiewicz is the leading liberal in the officially nonpartisan race.Caleb Alvarado for The New York TimesJustice Kelly has been much more explicit about his political advantages. He has support from the billionaire Uihlein family, whose super PAC, Fair Courts America, has spent $2.7 million on ads backing him and attacking Judge Protasiewicz. Justice Kelly has said major conservative donors will abandon the race if he does not advance to the general election. A spokesman for Fair Courts America did not respond to questions.“You need to be the kind of candidate that will attract the independent expenditures to get the message out across Wisconsin,” Justice Kelly told Republicans gathered at a Lincoln Day dinner in Sawyer County this month. “If it’s not me in the general election, it’s not like that money just moves over to Jennifer. It just won’t be spent. So if I’m not the candidate in the general election, Jennifer will jump in completely unarmed when the left is going to spend upwards of $25 million.”Democrats seem to prefer to face Justice Kelly and the Uihlein money rather than Judge Dorow’s shallower record.A Better Wisconsin Together, a Democratic super PAC, has spent $2 million in TV ads attacking Judge Dorow in the primary but nothing against Justice Kelly. Democratic opposition research has been focused on damaging Judge Dorow, who is less well known but perceived as more likable and reasonable than Justice Kelly by voters in Democratic focus groups.Democrats are vowing not to replay their 2022 Senate race.Last year, Wisconsin Democrats watched as Mandela Barnes, a popular, progressive, young Black candidate coalesced support before losing the general election to Senator Ron Johnson, a better-funded, older white Republican.Determined not to repeat that recent history, the party’s top leaders and fund-raisers coalesced behind Judge Protasiewicz, a white, female career prosecutor and jurist from the suburbs who is not as vulnerable to the types of barely coded attacks that helped doom Mr. Barnes last fall.Judge Protasiewicz built a commanding fund-raising advantage and has opened a wide lead in both parties’ private polling ahead of the primary. She is widely expected to place first on Tuesday, with the other liberal candidate in the race, Everett Mitchell, a more progressive Black judge from Dane County, projected to finish fourth.The near unanimity among Democrats combined with a fractured G.O.P. has Democrats planning and Republicans fearing a mountain of attack ads beginning as soon as Wednesday against whichever conservative candidate advances to a likely matchup with Judge Protasiewicz. A reverse dynamic in August damaged Mr. Barnes, while Mr. Johnson and his allies poured tens of millions into attack ads before the Democrat could recover.“There is no world in which Janet is defined by the right in the first weeks of the race,” said Sachin Chheda, a top strategist on the Protasiewicz campaign. “We are prepared for whatever the results are on Tuesday and will be hitting the pedal to the floor on Wednesday.” More